While at the Gigabyte suite for CES 2019 I came across a new gaming laptop from the Aorus
lineup that I didn’t expect, the Aorus 15, so let’s take a look at what this new model
has on offer.
The Aorus 15 has a nice clean matte black finish to it, and it looks like Gigabyte got
the memo about the wider touch pad trend because this one here looks a bit larger than usual.
The touchpad uses precision drivers out of the box too which is awesome to see, Gigabyte
and Aorus laptops previously used ELAN by default so no more manually replacing them.
The keyboard has RGB backlighting although it’s controlled in 3 zones rather than individual
key control. There’s also some subtle lighting coming from the two front corners, and this
can also be modified.
The Aorus logo power button is in the center along with what may be speaker space, just
below that big hinge holding the screen. Given the hinge is about half of the body it should
be pretty stable, and that indeed was the case. The screen looked alright in the show
floor environment, it’s a 15.6” 1080p 144Hz IPS panel from LG. The web cam and microphones
are above the display too despite the thinner bezels, no nose cam here like the Aero.
For the specs this unit has an Intel i7-8750H and Nvidia RTX 2060 graphics, although it
will also be available with 2070 too. There are two models, the X9 and W9, which only
differ in terms of graphics. For internal storage there’s a single 2.5 inch drive
bay and two M.2 slots with NVMe and SATA support, and two memory slots which support up to 32GB
of RAM. All of this is coming in a 2.4kg package at around 36.1cm in width, 24.6cm in depth
and 2.4cm in height.
On the left there’s an air exhaust vent, gigabit ethernet port, USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A
port, a mini SD card slot, personally I’d have liked to see full sized but maybe I need
to quit living in the past, and status LEDs.
On the right there’s a 3.5mm audio jack, two more USB 3.1 Gen 1 Type-A ports and air
exhaust vent, I like that the right was kept fairly minimal so that cables don’t get
in the way for the majority of people who are right handed and use a mouse, sorry lefties.
On the back from left to right is the power input, HDMI 2.0, mini DisplayPort 1.3, USB
3.1 Gen 2 Type-C port, and although the thunderbolt logo is here we have been told that the final
version won’t have Thunderbolt present, but it does support DisplayPort 1.3, otherwise
there’s a kensington lock and air exhaust vents in both corners.
On the lid there’s the Aorus logo as well as two bars on either side. These are lit
from the panel lighting so it means that they’re only white and cannot be turned off.
Underneath it looks like we’ve got some pretty good cooling, plenty of ventilation
for air and I can see at least 6 heatpipes. There was also a dedicated key on the keyboard
to change fan speed, with no need to also hold a function key down, so even easier cooling
if you’re as lazy as me.
It’s got a 62 watt hour battery, and the W9 version has a 180 watt power brick while
the higher tier X9 version with 2070 graphics has a 230 watt brick.
The Aorus 15 is also using Gigabyte’s new gaming+ and professional+ software, basically
they’ve teamed up with Microsoft Azure AI and have software that automatically adjusts
things like fan speed, clock speed and power limits of the CPU and GPU based on the work
you’re doing at the time. The idea is that you don’t need to go in and manually change
settings for best performance, the laptop just sets the best settings for the workload
that you’re running, so it will be very interesting to test how this works in the
future when it’s released.
Overall what I’m seeing here so far in this early model makes me think the Aorus 15 is
going to be a very well rounded machine. I’ve been advised that it should be available a
couple of weeks after the initial January 29th release for Nvidia RTX laptops, so hopefully
a full review isn’t too far away.
A lot of you have been asking me when there will be a new Aorus X5 or X7, so I asked whether
this new Aorus 15 replaces the X5 and X7, and I was told that for now it does, however
they are hoping to bring those models back later in the year, possibly around Computex
time, so around June 2019 but we’ll have to wait and see. I do actually plan on going
to Computex in 6 months time, so if you’re new get subscribed for my coverage there,
or if you can’t wait that long then subscribe anyway for the rest of my CES coverage.